By Cynthia Nevison, Ph.D., Guest Contributor For the last two decades, the CDC’s new Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network has conducted biannual surveillance of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prevalence among American children. This year, despite what was effectively a 10% increase in prevalence compared to the previous report released in 2018, the report drew scarcely a ripple of notice or concern, in a nation consumed with the coronavirus lockdown. The Associated Press story on the new report attributed the increase to better diagnosis among black children, stating “Autism has grown slightly more common in the U.S., but a gap in diagnosis of white and black kids has disappeared ... Closure of that gap – thanks to increased screening – is the main reason autism diagnoses are up a little, some experts said.” Unfortunately, this upbeat narrative is inaccurate and omits some important facts. | |